Thursday, January 11, 2007

A New Book from Michael Heller

Michael Heller, whose work is familiar to many readers of this blog, has just published Earth and Cave, a memoir which includes both prose and poetry, drawn from the writing Heller did while sojourning in Nerja, a little town on the southern coast of Spain, in 1965. Heller was 28 years old; he had left New York City and much of his old life behind, determined to transform himself into a poet. His encounters with the peasant culture of the town, his visits to the pre-historic caves in the region, and his growing awareness of his Jewish heritage in a country that both fostered and sought to extirpate Jewish life, makes this required reading for anyone who has followed Heller's work in poetry and criticism over his long career.

Earth and Cave is 45 pages perfect bound, and represents a big step forward for Dos Madres Press, which has previously published fifteen small, beautiful poetry chapbooks. Edited by Robert Murphy and designed by his wife Elizabeth, this is one of liveliest and most eclectic chapbook series going. So check out Earth and Cave and Dos Madres.